HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: LEGENDARY MONSTERS OF ARKANSAS

IIt’s October, and with Halloween fast approaching, it’s the perfect season for roasted marshmallows, camping, and telling spooky stories by the light of a flickering campfire. Arkansas has always been home to great storytellers, and that includes quite a few stories about monsters that supposedly roam the hills and hollows of The Natural State, including a few that are alleged to hang out in NWA. 

Seen below, just for fun, check out details on three legendary monsters that are said to have their stomping grounds right here in Arkansas! And if you need a quality new or used vehicle without a monstrous price tag, come see us today at McLarty Daniel…

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THE WHITE RIVER MONSTER

Situated in the farming country in the Northeast part of Arkansas, Newport might be the last place you’d expect a monster to lurk. But since at least 1915, residents along the muddy White River there have reported seeing a long, scaly river monster that has become known locally as “Whitey.” Described by eyewitnesses as between 40 and 50 feet long and as wide as a car, the creature is said to have gray, smooth, hairless skin like a seal, and blows up great blasts of water when agitated or frightened. In the 1930s, locals were so convinced of the existence of the beast that a wealthy local plantation owner named Bramlett Bateman, who claimed he saw the creature while working near the White River, funded the construction of a massive, river-spanning rope net to try to capture the creature alive. That effort failed, but Bateman stuck to his guns about his claims of seeing the monster for the rest of his life, later bringing in experienced former Navy Divers in primitive scuba gear to look for it underwater. Another notable run of sightings began in 1971, when locals again claimed to see a gray, horned beast more than 20 feet long in the White River, with investigators later documenting a trail of three-toed tracks along a muddy riverbank, with each print measuring 14 inches long. Investigators later found a trail of 14-inch-long footprints, each with three toes, along the riverbank. Interest in the monster was so great that in 1973 the Arkansas State Legislature made it illegal to hunt, harass or harm the White River Monster. The creature hasn’t been sighted in many years, now, but there’s always time! 

THE FOUKE MONSTER 

Situated in the extreme southwest corner of Arkansas in Miller County, the tiny town of Fouke always might seem like an unlikely place for a monster to lurk. But since at least the 1940s, locals and visitors have been reporting sightings of a family of massive, hairy, Bigfoot-like creatures that have since come to be collectively known as “The Fouke Monster.” One of Arkansas’s most enduring monster legends, The Fouke Monster stories were always about furtive glimpses of a shy, shambling ape until May 1971, when Fouke resident Bobby Ford and his family raced into town and breathlessly told police of their family farm being attacked by the Fouke Monster, which they described as hairy, walking upright like a person and seven feet tall with bright red eyes. The Ford family told police that the trouble started the previous evening around dusk, when Bobby Ford’s brother saw the massive creature walking across their rural property. Grabbing a rifle from the house, Ford claimed he took a shot at it with a high-powered rifle, apparently knocking it down and wounding it. The Ford Family told deputies that the enraged creature then attacked their house, trying to break down the door and at one point shoving a long, hairy arm through a window in an attempt to grab one of them. After several terrifying hours with the creature trying its best to break in, the Fords said, they were able to escape to a truck and race to town, where they reported their story to police. Investigators who visited the property the next day found no sign of the creature, but they did discover huge tracks and deep scratches on the wood of the porch, as if made by massive claws. After the story was reported in the local paper, it hit the wires and was republished coast to coast by the Associated Press, which coined the name “The Fouke Monster.” Eventually, the story was made into a low-budget horror movie called “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and a sequel. As for the Fouke Monster, while sightings do occasionally come in to local police departments, the apparently peaceful beast hasn’t decided to attack another home since the alleged assault on the Ford Farm.   

THE OZARK HOWLER

For a fantastic Arkansas beast that roams a little closer to home here in Northwest Arkansas, we now turn to The Ozark Howler, a frightful creature that legends say haunts the hills in North Arkansas and Southern Missouri. Some legends describe the Ozark Howler as being the size of a black bear, covered in dense black fur, with the horns and beard of a goat, while others say the Howler is a giant cat about as large as a Bengal tiger, with glowing yellow eyes and a sleek black coat. What the accounts all agree on, however, is the Ozark Howler’s blood-chilling cry, which carries for miles in the mountains and which is supposed to sound like a cross between the howl of a large timberwolf and the terrified scream of a woman. For the settlers who pioneered life in the Ozarks, some of whom slept outside in their travels with only a blanket, a campfire and a single-shot rifle for protection, that cry must have been blood-curdling indeed. 

Whatever the case, stories of the Ozark Howler have been a favorite around campfires in the Arkansas Ozarks since at least the early 1800s, and have since been collected in several anthologies of Ozark folklore. In more recent years, the stories seem to have been joined with tales of the Black Panther, a massive black cat, always nocturnal, that many claim to exist in Arkansas, also producing a blood-curdling scream. Folklorists, however, suggest both the Ozark Howler and the Arkansas Black Panther may both be just tall tales, possibly a folkloric remnant of stories of the demonic black hellhounds of Scottish and Irish folktales, brought to America with immigrants from Scotland, Ireland and England and adapted to better fit the creatures travellers saw in the Ozarks, including bears and cougars. That said, if you hear a deathly cry in the Ozarks while camping this fall, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

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